Swedish police training fails to make crime prevention feel like 'real work'
A survey of 303 Swedish police students reveals a critical gap: while they learn crime prevention skills, they don't view it as legitimate police work compared to intervention. This training-culture mismatch explains why crime prevention remains poorly implemented in practice—a finding that challenges how law enforcement agencies structure curricula and organizational priorities.
Originaltitel: Crime prevention in police education: a survey of Swedish police students knowledge, perceptions, and values
<p>Crime prevention is highly important, but often poorly implemented. This article explores reasons for this by examining the knowledge and perceptions of crime prevention of surveyed Swedish police students (n=303) and whether their education influences their perceptions. The students indicated that they had received opportunities to practice, and acquired skills to engage in, crime prevention, but their education had focused more on other aspects of police work. They also had more polarized attitudes toward crime prevention than other kinds of police work: some regarded it as very important, while others ranked it much lower. Generally, they saw crime prevention as lower status and less as “real police work” than intervention work. Students in their first and last semesters and those with varying levels of knowledge of crime prevention reported similar perceptions of crime prevention. The results illuminate why crime prevention is hard to implement in daily police work.</p>